Paul
Goble
Staunton, June 12 – During the
coronavirus pandemic, the editors of the Kasparov portal say, “the federal
center has thrown to the mercy of fate the regions” much as the union center
did at the end of Soviet times, thereby setting the stage for an equally
tumultuous outcome unless the Russian political system undergoes significant
changes.
The opposition portal devotes most of
its essay to a discussion of the back-and-fourth and, in its eyes, failed approach
Moscow adopted to the republics and regions since 1991, an approach in which
the center first simply ignored what was going on and then cracked down hard in
often counterproductive ways (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5EE33317EB0B8).
Chechnya fought two wars and was “defeated”
by Moscow only to acquire the ability to do pretty what its leaders want and to
be paid a subsidy by the Russian government at the same time. Tatarstan and
some other republics adopted less dramatic forms of resistance and obtained
less as a result, although relations are anything but acceptable to both sides.
And predominantly ethnic Russian
oblasts and krays have sought sovereignty but have seen their powers stripped
away and have refocused their attention on building power bases within existing
territorial lines rather than forming larger units like the Urals Republic and
the Siberian Agreement, which nonetheless remain in the back of the minds of
many Russians.
Beginning under Boris Yeltsin but in
a more consistent and extreme form under Vladimir Putin, both federalism and
self-administration disappeared. “Gradually out of our lives disappeared the
presidents of the republics (with the exception of Tatarstan) who became heads
of regions. Regional heads were no longer elected but appointed, and Putin’s
men were dispatched to rule the regions.
“Unexpectedly,” the editors write, “the
theme of federalization emerged again in 2015. In attempting to present itself
as a peacemaker, the Kremlin proposed as a means to resolve the conflict in the
Donbass the creation of a federation in which separatism could occupy the place
of some republics within a federative Ukraine.”
Kyiv viewed that as a plan to divide
the country, but “in Russia, some understood it in their own way; and in a
number of regions, actions for the federalization of the regions of Russia took
place. Activists declared that their demands completely corresponded to the
provisions of the Constitution,” the editors say.
Such demands circulated first and
foremost in Siberia and in the Kuban.
Moscow responded by arresting and charging participants with extremism. Like
so many other occasions on which the Kremlin has used force, that did not solve
the problem the demonstrators were speaking or end their desire for a new deal
between Moscow and the regions and republics.
“On this current anniversary of the
sovereignty of the Russian Federation, we have received amendments to the
Constitution about a state-forming people and others which in fact are designed
to destroy the authority of local power figures,” the Kasparov editors say. “Nevertheless,
the issue about the redistribution of authority between the center and the regions
remains open.”
Many in the non-Russian republics
and the predominantly ethnic Russian oblasts and krays will be disappointed that
the Kasparov organization does not go further in demanding real federalism; but
both groups have long been aware that when it comes to such issues, the Russian
opposition is seldom prepared to go much beyond calling for greater
self-administration rather than real federalism.
What is important in this case,
however, is that the Kasparov editors put the problems of relations between
Moscow and the non-Russian republics and between Moscow and the predominantly
ethnic Russian oblasts and krays into one category, thus laying the groundwork
for demands for a new kind of federalism that would help both, rather than leaving
Kasparov open to charges he’s supporting secession.
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